


Cleaning Up

by wherenonagoes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 21:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1320454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherenonagoes/pseuds/wherenonagoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin's back from his tour in Iraq, and his house shows it, so he decides to hire a housekeeper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleaning Up

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my friend Brooke. I hope you like it darling <3

Erwin had never been one for cleanliness. Always moving around and never having enough stuff to actually make a mess with made it hard to build up a habit of cleaning things. His new house, recently bought with the chunk of money he’d received after his parents funeral, didn’t look new anymore. He’d lived there for maybe two weeks after returning from Iraq, minus an arm. It was hard enough to live by himself after he got discharged, but the state his house was in now, littered with beer cans that he couldn’t remember getting and other things that didn’t make sense, it all angered him greatly.

That was how he found himself putting an ad in the paper for a maid, though he didn’t really know if people still read the newspaper. Erwin didn’t really expect anything to come of it, just wanting to do something, but a few days after the paper had been put out he heard someone knocking on his front door.

He approached the door, looking through the window to see a short man standing on the bottom step, looking at his watch. Erwin quickly opened it and stopped again. The man was really short, almost a foot shorter than Erwin himself.

“Are you going to let me in?”

“What’re you here for?” So as a first impression, this guy was not rubbing the right way, and Erwin almost wanted to slam the door in his face, but that was probably the lack of coffee yelling at him.

“I’m answering your ad for someone to come and regularly clean your house? Surely you must have thought someone would answer it.” The man handed the paper to Erwin, his ad circled with a purple marker. He checked it out, and nodded his head, handing it back.

“I guess you want to see the place before you agree to anything, right?” Erwin moved to let him in, and the man entered.

“I’m Levi,” the man introduced himself, turning back towards Erwin, his left hand out in front of him. Erwin shook it and closed the door.

“Just Levi? No last name?”

“Just Levi,” he answered, his face growing more and more bored by the second.

“That’s fair. Well, we can start with the kitchen I guess. It’s probably the worst.” Erwin eyed over him, and decided that he was short, if that wasn’t already obvious.

The tour of the house didn’t take long, and soon enough they were back by the front door. Levi had a notepad out and was scribbling things hastily.

“I have bad news,” he said as he finished writing, clicking the pen and putting it back in his pocket.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to clean the place, I know it’s horrible,” and Erwin hadn’t actually expected the first person asking about the ad to be the person he hired.

“I’ll take the job, but your house will probably never be completely clean.” Levi stared straight up at him, his eyes unwavering, full of seriousness.

“Wait, what? That’s what you’re here for, to clean the house.”

“I know, but even if I had everything I needed to clean this place, it won’t get clean. There’s.. there’s a feeling around that will always make it feel dirty.” Levi didn’t seem to like what he was saying, and Erwin straightened his pose, nodding.

“Understood. Well, you can come in whenever you like to clean. Though, if I tell you to leave one day, you have to listen to me.” Erwin knew, he knew he would have more bad days in the future. His body still felt off balance, his mind could feel the same at times. He hoped the times when he could be predictable would come back, but he wasn’t so sure.

“I will be here to clean, and to clean only, I can stay out of your way. I’ll come back later with my own cleaning supplies, and I’ll start tomorrow.” Levi seemed to be commanding this situation more than Erwin was, and he was the one employing him! Erwin nodded, and Levi handed him another scrap of paper. “This is my number in case you need anything. I’ll see you later, Erwin Smith.”

He watched as Levi left in his small black Chrysler, though why someone who owned one of those needed a day job he didn’t know. Erwin closed the door after the car was out of sight, and walked back into his room, fully planning on watching his tella novellas the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

For the next couple of weeks, Levi came in every single day but Saturday, claiming that was his day of rest, and that Erwin could clean up after himself on those days. It was a fine fresh Sunday morning, and Erwin was sitting on the rocking chair on the porch in front of his house, a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hand. He could see his breath when he sighed at the sight of Levi’s little black car coming into view.

He didn’t feel like being around people that day, and it would be simple enough to just tell Levi to leave, but he’d grown accustomed to the smaller man being around, even if mostly silent. Levi parked his car next to the truck Erwin used to drive, and got out. When he saw Erwin on the porch he paused, but then continued towards him.

“I’m working in the attic today,” he informed Erwin.

“No, you’re going to leave.”

“No.” Levi didn’t move, just stood in front of the door, a ring of keys in his hand. That had been one of the things Erwin had invested in, getting Levi a spare key so he could get into the house when he slept in. Now he was wishing he hadn’t.

“Levi, I told you that when I didn’t want you around that you needed to-”

“And I told you that I would stay out of your way. You won’t see me at all; I’m only going to be in the attic,” Levi interrupted. He nodded his head towards Erwin before entering the house, the door falling shut behind him. Erwin groaned, wanting to just through the cup of coffee in his hands at the stupid little black car in his driveway. Had he not told Levi that he would need time by himself? Sure, he’d had that the day before, but he hadn’t been in such a foul mood yesterday either.

Erwin drank the rest of his coffee in the kitchen, sitting in one of the barstools, before he headed towards the attic. The door to the upper level was still open, so it was easy for him to climb the stairs and just look inside to find Levi and tell him to get the hell out of his house.

“Levi, I swear to God, I told you to leave,” Erwin looked around the attic, and finally spotted the man going through a pile of junk, separating them into two different piles. There was a white knot at the back of his head, and when Levi turned to face him, he saw a handkerchief around his nose.

“I understand. Unfortunately we don’t always get what we want.” He stood and wiped his hands on a towel that hung from his belt, looking back to Erwin after taking off the handkerchief. “Plus, this is what you get for always leaving your shoes out of your closet, for always leaving your socks right next to the dirty clothes hamper, and for never hanging up your towel after you shower.”

Erwin blinked, not understanding. “What?”

Levi groaned and began walked out of the attic, pulling at Erwin’s hand as he brought him down with him. They walked into Erwin’s bedroom, the one place Levi only cleaned while Erwin let him, and stopped at the door. The ground was filthy. There were clothes in piles by the hamper, and a few pairs of pants scattered places as well. His shoes were in a pile by the closet, though he didn’t know when he’d gotten to owning to many pairs. The door leading to the bathroom was ajar, and Levi lead him towards that as well. The towels he used were sitting on the back of the toilet, and one had even fallen down behind it.

“This is absolutely disgusting. How can you live with this?” Levi almost looked offended to be in the same room as something so dirty, and Erwin couldn’t help but begin to laugh. It was the sort of laugh he hadn't had since before his deployment, and it felt great to laugh like it. Levi just stared at him, floored at Erwin’s reaction. “I don’t understand why this is funny. It’s dirty.”

“It’s funny because you care so much. I’ll try to keep my bedroom cleaner, alright?”

“Fine, but I am going to clean it right now, and run your laundry. Go do something else.” Levi pushed Erwin out of his room, and he couldn’t help but smile for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

Soon enough, Erwin began to clean the house alongside Levi when he came over. He couldn’t do as much as he wanted, but he did what he could, and each day when they finished early, he offered to let Levi stay for dinner, and each time Levi accepted.

They talked and talked, and Levi, after a few beers, asked about his arm. Erwin swallowed hard, placing his bottle down on the counter in front of him. They were on opposite sides of the counter now, Levi sitting in a barstool, Erwin standing over the sink, freshly cleared of dishes.

“I was on tour in Iraq. One of the mines we had malfunctioned. I wasn’t even in battle… They were going to try and just leave it at the elbow, but an infection spread, so they did away with the whole thing.” He picked up his bottle again and drank the rest before replacing it on the counter, sighing afterwards. Levi just nodded, staring at seemingly nothing.

“It must be hard to do some things, right?”

“Yeah, like I can’t drive that much. They offered to help and stuff to see if I could qualify to do some program to drive again, but I gave up. That’s why I’m always here.”

“I could take you somewhere else. It’s got to be incredibly lonely here.”

“Yeah, well maybe some other day. You better just stay the night, it’s not safe for you to drive home.” Erwin smiled as Levi nodded, getting off of his stool.

“I’ll change the sheets in the guest bedroom after tonight,” Levi stated, almost as if it actually mattered.

“Don’t worry about it right now. Just go and get some sleep,” Erwin told him, and Levi nodded again afterwards, his cheeks growing slightly pink, though Erwin had thought it from the alcohol.

“I was wondering if I could stay more than just tonight,” his voice was more than careful, and Erwin couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s fine. It’s practically already your house anyways,” Erwin smiled and was about to return to the counter, to put his bottle in the recycling bin, when Levi walked up to him, and standing on his tiptoes, kissed him very lightly, their lips barely touching. Levi’s eyes were closed, and it was weird to see them so close, but Erwin found he didn’t mind, he actually sort of liked it.  

“You should brush your teeth more,” Levi told him after, still close, Erwin still able to feel his body heat.

“Alright. Now get to bed,” Erwin pushed him towards the guest bedroom, closing the door after Levi was safely in. He shook his head a bit, his hand on his hip as he thought about what happened. He’d just have to ask Levi about it tomorrow, and hope the other man didn’t tell him he needed to clean up his mind.

 

 


End file.
